


Someone Else's Happiness

by BerryBagel



Series: Endgame Fix-It Fics [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Endgame, playing fast and loose with the rules of time travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-08 13:04:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18623848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BerryBagel/pseuds/BerryBagel
Summary: It's easy for Bucky to guess how Steve spent all those decades.  His guesses are, however, incorrect.Endgame Fix-it fic, everything in this story is consistent with what we see in canon, albeit vastly reinterpreted.





	Someone Else's Happiness

**Author's Note:**

> MAJOR ENDGAME SPOILERS IN THIS FIC!
> 
> Title from Fall Out Boy's "Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet," which I listened to while writing this!

Sam has the wherewithal to actually look surprised when Steve doesn’t reappear.  Banner checks his switches and dials. The machine is working perfectly, though. Bucky could have told him that.

 

Steve makes his entrance with characteristic drama.  Steve has been a centenarian for several years, but now he’s really looking his age.  His face is deeply lined from, apparently, a life well-lived.

 

Back in the 30’s, when Steve’s health really took a turn for the worse, Bucky was afraid he’d never see Steve live to be this old.  For a few years there, Steve may as well have kept going on spite alone. Then after the serum, it seemed, for a few precious seconds, like the guy might actually keep kicking into old age.  

 

Of course, no mission was too dangerous for  _ Captain America _ .  Bucky once again had to face the idea that Steve was probably going to burn out in a blaze of glory, sooner rather than later.

 

So to be faced with undeniable proof that Steve not only lived, but  _ retired _ ?  Bucky won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.  Steve dodges Sam’s questions about the finer points of time travel.  His self-satisfied smirk really says more than enough about how he’s been spending the last seventy years.

 

* * *

Steve lives in a suburb of New York, now.  Says he moved in the 70’s, and that it’s easier to keep a low profile outside of the city.  He invites them over for dinner, because at some point during his life, Steve has learned to make lasagna, and he has one in the fridge all ready to be heated.

 

Banner declines the offer, but Sam and Bucky both follow Steve upstate to a little ranch style house.  Steve’s motorcycle is parked in the driveway. There’s a flower bed out front, and what looks like a chicken coop in the side yard.

 

“We were going to get goats, but, y’know, neighborhood regulations.” Steve says, when Bucky and Sam look at the coop with confused curiosity.

 

Bucky imagines that’s a reference to his herd back in Wakanda.  He hopes someone looked out for the goats while he was dust. One of the does had been just about to give birth when everything went to hell in a handbasket.  Bucky should be back in Wakanda with his goats instead of playing tourist to the life Steve lived without him.

 

They go inside, and Bucky tries to take, at most, a cursory glance around.  There are photographs framed on the fireplace mantle. Sam moves to take a closer look at the pictures, but Bucky feels no such need.  It’s obvious enough that Steve has been very happy here with Peggy. He doesn’t need to inspect the evidence.

 

Sam makes a surprised noise at one of the photos.  He looks over his shoulder with bewilderment at Steve, who’s now puttering around his kitchen with the lasagna dish.  The lasagna looks fine. If this is Steve’s most specialized recipe, Bucky maybe would have expected it to be a little bit more elaborate.  It doesn’t look like there are even any vegetables in it.

 

Steve turns to see what picture Sam’s holding, and it isn’t a photograph, after all.  It looks like a booklet. A funeral pamphlet, perhaps, judging by Sam’s sympathetic expression.

 

Steve smiles sadly.

 

“Two years, now?” Sam asks, looking at the pamphlet.  Steve nods, pausing amidst his dinner preparations.

 

“Still hurts.” Steve says.  “But we had so much more time together than I ever thought we would, and I have to be thankful for that.”

 

Bucky vaguely recalls hearing Peggy passed on, almost a decade ago.  Maybe being with Steve this time around extended her life by a few years.  Healing power of love, he supposes.

 

* * *

Sam gets a call from Fury, and has to leave right after dinner.  Bucky also gets a call from Fury, but  _ Bucky _ isn’t Captain America, so he doesn’t feel like he has to be quite as punctual.

 

Bucky tells Steve to keep in touch, and Steve agrees so easily that Bucky can almost pretend things will be normal between them.  Or at least, as normal as things ever are. Steve may be several decades older than he was this morning, but he’s still  _ Steve _ .  Bucky reaches out to give a stiff-armed pat on the shoulder, and Steve pulls him into a crushing embrace.

 

It hits Bucky that Steve isn’t simply  _ older _ .  He’s lived those years.  Bucky can act like everything is the same, but only if he wants to ignore what now makes up the majority of Steve’s life.  Bucky’s own life is one long string of events connected intrinsically to Steve. By the looks of it, Steve’s life features appearances from Bucky only in the prologue and epilogue.

 

“I’m glad you got your dance.” Bucky mumbles into Steve’s shoulder, and that’s the honest truth.  Bucky is glad for Steve. Steve has lived a full, happy life with the person he loved. Bucky just wishes he could’ve been there for more of it.

 

He’ll take what he can get.  He’s good at that. He’ll visit as often as Steve lets him, and feed the chickens.  He’ll go with Steve’s geriatric ass to Bingo, or whatever it is the elderly do these days.  And if that’s too painful, he’ll go back to Wakanda and his goats, and be thankful that Steve was ever in his life at all.

 

“I’m glad I could go do things right, this time around.” Steve says, and Bucky pulls back from the hug.

 

“Well, I’m sure it helped to have Carter around running interference on all your stupid plans.” Bucky says.  He tries to keep it light.

 

Steve doesn’t smile.  In fact, he looks confused.

 

“C’mon, Carter’s a force of nature.” Bucky elaborates.  Steve looks at him with pleasant uncertainty.

 

“She sure was.” Steve finally agrees.  “You know, her son lives near here. I’ll introduce you sometime.”

 

Bucky pauses.  Why could this conversation not have happened when Sam was here for backup?  “Sure thing. I’d love to meet your son.”

 

“ _ Peggy _ ’s son.” Steve says.

 

“Who is...not also your son?” Bucky asks.

 

A realization of some kind seems to register behind Steve’s eyes.  “Why do you think I went back?” Steve asks.

 

“You had your dance with Peggy.  Got married, white picket fence, moved to the suburbs?” Is that a trick question, Bucky wonders.

 

“I did promise Peggy a dance, and I held that promise.  But she still had to go on to be with her husband and her family.  I couldn’t interrupt the course of her life like that. And even if I could, I wouldn’t.” Steve says.

 

“Alright.  So why’d you stay so long, then?” Bucky asks.

 

Steve has been sort of avoiding eye contact all evening, which becomes highly apparent as Bucky is suddenly fixed with the full force of Steve’s stare.

 

“For you.” Steve says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

 

* * *

The year is 1950, but the Winter Soldier has no way of knowing this.  Under normal conditions, he’s removed from cryosleep, and immediately briefed with the pertinent details of his mission.

 

As soon as the fogged glass of the cryogenic tube slides open, the Soldier prepares himself to receive information.  None is given. Someone begins to unbuckle the straps holding him in place.

 

The last time the Soldier was brought out of cryosleep without mission briefing, it was because the handlers wanted to inform him of the death of Steven Rogers.  The name means nothing to the Soldier anymore, but he retains the memory nevertheless. The handlers told him, so it must be important to remember. It is categorically neutral information.

 

The straps around the Soldier’s legs are loosened and removed.  He attempts a step forward. Sensation has not returned to his extremities yet.  He falls forward, bracing for impact with the floor.

 

Someone catches him.  Not one of the handlers.  This man offers more support than is strictly necessary, wrapping his arms entirely around the Soldier.

 

“Bucky?  Do you recognize me?” The man asks.  Yes, the Soldier does recognize him, and the name  _ Bucky _ , but that information is effectively compartmentalized.

 

The man is of comparable physicality to the Soldier.  He does not appear to anticipate an attack. The Soldier has a high degree of confidence in his ability to overpower the man.  The soldier does not attack.

 

“I’m Steve.” The man says, slower than necessary for comprehension.   _ Steven Rogers _ , the soldier knows.  Steven Rogers, who is dead.

 

The Soldier repeats everything he knows about Steven Rogers.  “Steve Rogers died in 1945, in an aeroplane crash.” It is not categorically neutral information, the soldier realizes.  It is deeply distressing information. More importantly, it now appears to be false information.

 

“Well, you’re right about the airplane.” Steve says.

 

* * *

The Winter Soldier has, to hear Hydra speak of it, shaped the course of history.

 

The second time through, the Winter Soldier does not shape the course of history.  The Winter Soldier realizes he is Bucky Barnes, and returns with Steve to New York.

 

The Bucky Barnes of 2023 will dearly miss the years Steve has lived without him.  But the Bucky Barnes of 2023 has Sam, and Shuri, and will be able to carry on. Steve will explain someday.

 

The year is 1950, and Steve will not leave the equally real Bucky Barnes who has to relearn what it means to be human.  They’re going to see the Grand Canyon, and learn to bake mediocre lasagna, and eventually move to upstate New York. Instead of being a man lost in time and a ghost outside of time, they will be home.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll admit, I was really expecting Steve to die, so the fact that he gets a canonical happy ending really floats my boat!
> 
> I will always have a soft spot for Steve/Bucky, though, and I did feel that there was some dubious time travel usage occurring. So this fic is representative of me working through my feelings about that :)


End file.
